Archaeomagnetic evidence of pre-Hispanic origin of Mezcal

Abstract

For centuries, and until a few years ago, it was considered that the distillation process had been brought to the new world by the Spaniards, who in turn learned it from the Arabs. For this reason, it was believed that the only alcoholic beverage of the Mesoamerican societies was pulque - a ferment of maguey. However, recent archaeological investigations revealed that the alcohol distillation was known in Mesoamerica long before the arrival of Europeans, for at least 25 centuries. The direct evidence comes from the ceremonial and administrative center of Xochitécatl-Cacaxtla (state of Tlaxcala) with several ovens where cooked maguey remains were discowered. The corresponding archaeological context was radiometrically dated from 600 to 400 BCE. Here, we report a detailed archaeomagnetic study on burned archaeological artifacts found in these cooking ovens. 35 specimens belonging to two pottery fragments, one burned rock and two burned soil samples were pre-selected for archaeointensity experiments. Pottery samples exhibited essentially reversible behavior during thermomagnetic experiments pointing to Ti-poor titanomagnetite (almost magnetite phase) as main magnetic carrier while two ferromagnetic phase seems to co-exist in burned soils. In contrast, burned rock samples exhibited some instabilities during the heating at high temperatures and indirect evidence of the presence of antiferromagnetic hematite grains. In total, 29 specimens allowed the estimation of absolute geomagnetic intensity recorded during the last use of the furnace. Archaeomagnetic dating yielded two possible time intervals between 878 to 693 BCE and 557 to 487 BCE. These new data reinforce the initial hypothesis and corroborate the temporality of these pre-Hispanic kilns.